Officers

2014-2015 GSC Officers

Kendall Nowocin

President

Kendall Nowocin (EECS, PhD student) researches power system reliability and availability of developed and developing power grids. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering with honors from The Citadel in May 2011 and S.M in Electrical Engineering from MIT in June 2013. He is a certified Engineer in Training (EIT) with work experience in the fields of construction (Atlantic Electric LLC), automation (Robert Bosch), power (Santee Cooper), and defense (MIT LL). His experience in developing small and large power systems range from working on residential and industrial electrical projects for Atlantic Electric LLc to a 2.4 GW power plant for SC Power Utility. He has previously served MIT organizations as GSC 2013 Orientation Co-Chair, 2012 Chair of the Career Fair Directors, 2012 EECS Graduate Student Association Treasurer. In addition he has served on the Committee on Graduate Programs, Committee on Discipline, and GSC & UA Student Joint Task Force on the 17th Presidential Search. A native of South Carolina, he enjoys golf, sailing, hiking, and cycling.

Francesco Bellei

Vice-President

Francesco Bellei is a third year Ph.D. student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT. He received his Master Degree in Nanotechnology for ICT from a joint program between the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy), the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (France) and the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland). Currently, Francesco works on Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors for Free-Space Communication in the Quantum Nanostructures and Nanofabrication Group. Before being elected for the role of GSC Vice-President, Francesco was Co-Chair of the Orientation Committee (2013-2014) with Kendall Nowocin, and Council Representative for Off-campus students (2012-2013). Outside of MIT, Francesco enjoys hanging out with friends, cooking and exploring new eateries.

Chris Aakre

Secretary

Chris Aakre is a fifth year Ph.D. student in the Microbiology program at MIT. He is an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipient and works for Professor Michael Laub in the Biology department. He currently studies how to engineer novel protein-protein interactions in toxin-antitoxin systems of bacteria. Prior to MIT, he received his B.S. from Stanford University in Biological Sciences. A native of Washington state, he enjoys coffee, biking, and following the latest fitness fads.

Shabnam Raayai Ardakani

Treasurer

Shabnam Raayai-Ardakani is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Shabnam got her S.M. degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2013 and her B.S. from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. She was ranked first (based on GPA) among the class of 2011 in the Mechanical Engineering Department. She is currently working on the mechanics of fluid flow over compliant patterned surfaces in the ‘Mechanics of Solids and Materials’ and the ‘Non-newtonian Fluid Dynamics’ groups in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Shabnam has previously served as Ashdown House Cultural Committee Officer (2012-2013), Ashdown House Executive Committee Treasurer (2013-2014) and co-coordinator of 2013 Graduate School 101/102 and the Information Booth, two of the main graduate orientation events.